New students had been housed in dormitories in the central buildings ahead. Later, they could board with families in the town. Most of the citizens of Hellbane U were fixers — teachers or researchers — but some had been family and descendants of fixers, without special powers.
Then Jenny realized that the reporter was such a person, that he was a refugee from Hellbane U, returning to his former home and shocked by the desolation. He was a professional, however, and his voice stayed steady as the team progressed through the ghostly town, but she could hear the thickness of tears in it.
Tears were falling down her own cheeks.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Eventually the camera reached the central buildings. It panned lecture halls, libraries, and rooms that defied general descriptions. The tour continued, and Jenny watched it all, but Hellbane U was a dead place, the inhabitants gone. She remembered an old Earth term for it. A ghost town.
Where have all the flowers gone?
She found the song in the system and set it to play.
Another war song.
Damn war.
She listened, and watched, and wept for all the heroes who weren't coming back from the war.
6
They held a parade, renamed Bond Street Dan Fixer Way, and life went on.
Doctors had to learn how to mend broken bones with splints and plaster, but the latest technology was on the way. Apparently they had bugs and bots now to do just about anything the fixers could do. The Minister for Post-Fixer Adjustment moved into the fixer's flat. Dan's things were sent to his parents, who turned most of it over to a committee planning the Dan Fixer Museum. Jenny managed to sneak the red jacket out and take it home.
No one knew what the fixers had done, but they were heroes for sure. Yet it seemed to Jenny that, other than Dan's family and friends, people didn't seem deeply affected by the loss.
Her pain was beyond words or expression, so she hid it, glad that no one knew about that last night.
Then, as she wandered out of work at the end of another meaningless day, a woman in the street bumped into her.
"Did you hear? Dan Fixer's back!"
Jenny stared at her. "They found his body?" But then she answered herself. "No. Blighters leave nothing but ash."
"Alive as you and me! Outside the southern gate, he is."
Alive? Outside? The words didn't make sense.
"They're keeping him out, till they figure out what to do."
The gates would be shut, yes. They were still shut and guarded, though now she thought about it, she didn't know why. "Then it can't be Dan," Jenny said. "He's a citizen."
"And a fixer. Citizen of all, citizen of none."
A sort of glee in the woman's voice shattered the blank-ness in Jenny's mind. "You don't want him back? How can you not want him back? He's a hero. He saved the world. We had a parade and named a bloody street after him! Don't you at least want the fixing back?"
The woman backed away, then turned and hurried off.
Jenny stood frozen. Dan was back?
Alive?
She was already running toward the nearest tram stop. She needed to get to the gate, get to Dan. Then she realized it would be on screen. If it was true. She stopped, made herself look calm, and walked into the nearest pub.
One of the big screens faced the door, split between a cricket game., comedy, and a dim, sunset landscape. She saw a fire and a figure by it. She moved into that line of sound, having to squeeze up against two men in business clothes.
"… claiming to be Dan Fixer," an announcer was saying.
"The Witan is meeting to discuss this development and assures everyone…"
Jenny stepped into the cricket commentary so she could focus on the picture. The camera must be up on the wall, looking down at the road. On the grass verge a small fire burned and a man sat beside it, reaching for a kettle, pouring boiling water into a pot.
Memory staggered her, then hope swept in, as weakening in its own way. She grasped a chair to hold herself up.
"Creepy, if you ask me."
Jenny blinked and looked at the two young men in office wear drinking pints. One was blond with a sharp face, the other dark-haired and heavy.
"They've always been a bit strange, haven't they, fixers?" the blond said.
"No one knows how it works," the heavy one replied.
"No one knows what they did to win, either. One minute the blighters are all over us, next minute they're gone."
"Fixers were supposed to be gone, too. So it can't really be him, can it?"
"Or they're playing silly buggers with us."
More faint hostility. Was this a dream? It wouldn't be surprising to dream that Dan was back, but why would she dream this? She wanted to ask what the hell they were thinking. If Dan was back, it was wonderful!
"They had stories on Earth about this sort of thing," the heavy man said.
"About what?" his friend asked.
"About people who come back from the dead. Ghouls. Vampires. Zombies. Ghosts. Monsters."
Jenny couldn't keep quiet. "Monsters?"
The man turned to her. "Can't know for sure, can we?"
Perhaps she looked alarmed rather than angry, because the other one said, "It's probably not even him, luv. Some berk thinking he can impersonate a hero, that's all. And not even good at it. I saw Dan Fixer not long before he left, and his hair was no longer than mine. Look at that."
He pointed at the screen, and Jenny looked. The camera wasn't on zoom so details weren't clear, but it did look as if the man had a rope of hair down his back.
She didn't realize how much hope she'd gathered until it drained away.
"Like a Trojan horse."
Jenny looked at the dark-haired man in disbelief. "Bringing what into the town?"
"Who knows. That's the point, isn't it?"
Jenny couldn't entirely fight off the idea. The fixers and the blighters had fed off the same force. What if in the end the remaining blighters had taken over their enemies?
She opened that neglected part of her mind, trying to detect something. Was the faint tingle real, or wishful thinking? Was her churning stomach and throbbing head a sign that the blighters were back, or just shock and nerves?
The screen picture changed to a stocky man. Alderman Higginbottom! She sidled over so she could hear him.
"… have to take the cautious road here. We were given to understand that all the fixers had died in their gallant victory. We've been in touch with other major centers, and none of them have heard from their fixers. None of them have one on the doorstep, so to speak."
The camera shifted to the reporter, an eager young woman. "But Dan Fixer has explained that some survived, hasn't he?"
"He can explain all he wants, but we can't just take his word."
The message bar on the screen began to scrolclass="underline" Alderman Jack Higginbottom talking to Angliacom reporter Alinda Brown. Subject — arrival at the southern gate of a person claiming to be Daniel Rutherford Fixer, our hero of the Hellbane Wars. Gates are currently being kept closed to everyone while a committee of the Witan reviews the situation.
Committee. Jenny had to bite back laughter. It was a standing joke that when anything unusual happened in Anglia, the response was "Let's form a committee." Now they were doing it, and as always it was a way of passing time in the hope that the problem would go away.
"But given the heroic victory," Brown asked, "doesn't it seem wrong to leave someone outside for the night?"
"Well, now, there's no saying how long it will be. The committee may come to a rapid decision. As always, all citizens of Anglia are welcome to observe the discussion and make presentations, either at Parliament Hall or from screen phones."